My research interests center on electoral accountability and representation in contexts of poor government performance. I explore how corruption shapes voter behavior, elite behavior, and representation. I study when and why voters enact electoral accountability against political elites for corruption as well as the strategies that corrupt elites use to evade accountability and maintain voter loyalty. I also work on the intersection of corruption and gender, studying how women’s representation and gender stereotypes influence voters’ reactions to malfeasance. In developing projects, I am investigating how elites engage strategically with anticorruption efforts, such as anticorruption bill proposals and campaign appeals, and how those efforts influence voter behavior in Latin American democracies. As a postdoc with Fem-LEAD, I research how environmental disasters and weather-related crises in the Global South impact the supply of and demand for women in political office. These projects also explore how voters’ corruption perceptions influence their electoral reactions to environmental crises. My research has been published in Political Behavior and Electoral Studies and is forthcoming in Government & Opposition and Survey Research Methods.

I use various quantitative methods in my research including vignette experiments, conjoint experiments, large-N statistical analyses, and text analysis. I also rely on qualitative data collected in the field. In Fall 2022, I conducted elite and expert interviews in Buenos Aires, Argentina for my dissertation.

Prior to Rice, I earned my B.A. in Political Science and Spanish (double major, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa) at The University of Alabama. I received my M.A. in Political Science from Rice University in 2020.

You can contact me via email at emily.elia(at)gu.se and find me on Twitter at @Emily_Elia and on Bluesky at @emilyelia.bsky.social.